


A Trip Down Memory Lane

by Airelle



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-18
Updated: 2012-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airelle/pseuds/Airelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a re-telling of the last episode of the series, "Blake" (ep 4.13)<br/>All dialogs are exactly as we hear them in the episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Trip Down Memory Lane

**Author's Note:**

> First published in FIRE AND ICE II, 1993  
> Never published on the Internet as far as I know

BLAKE'S TRIP

    _No,_ thought Blake as he exited Deva's office, _Deva does not understand. How could he? There are so many things I have kept from him... Like why I've never tried to contact Avon again... Although god knows I came close to doing it after I learned of the loss of Liberator._

    Now, Blake knew Avon had been looking for him. He knew his old crew was on its way to the base. He knew he was going to see again the man he had left in command of the Liberator, as had been their agreement. True, the manner of his departure had been a little more abrupt than intended, what with the way Jenna had spirited him from his dying ship, and the time it had taken his wounds to heal, the one he had sustained on Star One, and those he suffered in the crash of his life capsule. He had never wanted to take the time for corrective surgery for his left eye. But he had gotten used to the impaired vision and the residual ache in his eye and cheek. Somehow, he even found bitterly amusing the fact that he suffered from a handicap not very different from the one he had inflicted on his old nemesis, Space Commander Travis. He also surmised that Travis' reasons for not having had his eye and hand fixed were the same than his own. A kind of pride in showing their battle wounds for all to see, a way of telling the world "we're fighters, hunters!".

    And now, Avon was coming back. What Blake did not understand about the man was not his demand to be given the Liberator; it was not the dislike of Blake he had shown so prominently during the days before Star One; it was the ongoing fight, the way Avon had stood against Servalan, the way he had become a symbol of the revolution, even more so than Blake himself. This Avon, Blake did not understand. As he could not fathom how a man of integrity - for Avon, despite all his verbal denigrations of the Cause, and his repeated assertions that he was only concerned for his own welfare, had been a man of integrity, true to his word and ready to put his life on the line for those same people he did not want to call friends - how this man could have done some of the things that had been reported to him. There were several occurrences that made him think that Avon was no longer totally sane. _But who is, in this line of duty?_   thought Blake. _I don't know if I'm sane myself... Deva tries to tell me, in his own way, that I'm not, that I should reconsider. Yet I have to do the things I do, to take the risks I take. There's no other way of knowing if I can trust the people I recruit..._

    How much mistaken Blake was, he would find, somewhat belatedly, before the day was over.

    He had not slept well the night before; he had been suffering from insomnia for some time now, and was reluctant to go to the base doctor, who would undoubtedly plague him again with the operation, saying, as he had done quite often, that it was childish and masochistic to keep the eye in this condition when relatively simple surgery and a few days rest could do the trick. On board the Liberator, Avon had been the one with insomnia, Blake remembered. The bad-tempered, closed-off technician had never made a fuss about it, but Blake knew. He had heard the restless pacing in the cabin next his own on more than one night; he had seen Avon's puffy, tired eyes on more than one morning. And he had never dared to say anything. Avon was just not the kind of person you could pity, or help, or talk to in a friendly fashion.

    Yet he had been very fond of the little sod. Had it not been a totally ludicrous idea, considering the animosity Avon had always shown towards him, Blake could even have nurtured more tender feelings for him. In fact, he had. He just never had allowed these feelings to bloom, telling himself there was no time, and besides Avon might not be interested in men. But Blake knew now with bittersweet hindsight that he had simply been scared stiff of any emotional entanglement with Avon. The man had managed to bite his head off more than once when they were only fellow crewmembers. What would he have done had they been lovers, and Blake crossed him? The mere thought was appalling!

    Blake made his way to his quarters, intending to change clothes and go out again before his friends arrived at the base. According to Deva, they should not be there before the next morning, considering the place where they had been spotted. There was this other matter to investigate, the spacecraft that had crashed in plantation 5, near the base. The records had shown the craft was badly damaged, but had landed more or less in one piece, and had not exploded. There could be survivors in it. Allies, possibly, for the craft was probably a wanderer class planet hopper, certainly not Federation.

    Wearily, he entered his quarters and proceeded to shower and change, feeling marginally better afterwards. He could not help reminiscing, knowing his friends were so near, the friends he had more or less abandoned two years ago. _Be honest for once, Blake!_ he thought savagely. _You don't give a damn about the others. You're terribly upset at the idea of seeing Avon again. He's the one who bothers you. You've had a hard time keeping away, didn't you? Yet it was agreed. What the hell could I have done?  
_  
    Distracted, he exited the base, not really seeing what was around him. He came abruptly to his senses when he realized how deadly such forgetfulness could be on Gauda Prime, the planet of living dangerously!

    Nonetheless, the trip to the crash site was uneventful. Blake found indeed a survivor in the ship, a somewhat battered young man with curly hair and a feral grin. Tarrant was able to move after a while, despite his obvious pain, and Blake proceeded to set up his usual baiting test for the newcomers. Something told him he could rely on this one - maybe because the young man reminded him so strongly of himself at the same age. _Although_ , mused Blake, I _have never been this beautiful, or this slim, even at twenty! But I certainly had this  cockiness. He's quite an arrogant bastard, and I guess I was too before the Puppeteers managed to shred my mind to pieces..._

    Yet he could not bring himself to trust immediately, to tell the pilot that it was all a setup, a test, and that he was welcome in the rebellion. They needed a good pilot. Since Jenna's death, there had been no one as talented or as daring as her. Blake had been fond of Jenna, he had known she was in love with him, but he had always been careful not to give her any hope. His longings had never been directed towards women, even before meeting Avon, he was sure of that much. His memories were hazy, but he had managed to remember some of the things the psychomanipulators had erased. Among those things was the knowledge that he had always been attracted to men, and the painfully dim memory of a strong commitment to a male. He could not remember the person, the face, only the feelings. The love, the warmth... It was as if something very important had been ripped from him, trampled and dirtied, but not killed altogether.

       
AVON'S TRIP

    It was not without qualms that Avon teleported down from the Scorpio, abandoning Tarrant to his fate. In fact, he hesitated for all of one second. No point in them both dying when one at least could escape with his life - particularly if the life was his own. Avon liked to think of himself as ruthless, uncaring and cold. "Brains, but not heart."

    In fact, he did not so much like as need his self-defined semi-barbaric image. It served as a protection against his too easily hurt feelings. _What a sham I am!_ Avon thought ruefully as he made his way to try and find the others, carrying Orac.

    Suddenly, the technician stumbled and almost fell, breaking his fall at the last moment by reaching for a nearby tree. He remained there a few moments, breathing hard, tiredness seeping in the very marrow of his bones. _All those sleepless nights are catching up on me,_ he thought despondently, focusing all his energy on standing straight and on putting one foot in front of the other.

   _And soon I'll see Blake. At last he'll have to answer to me for the hell he's put me through. I thought he cared for me... He called me friend, he breached my defenses, and then he left me without a word, without so much as a by-your-leave..._

    At first he had thought - feared - Blake was dead. He had been in a bad way before the escape from the failing Liberator, and life capsules weren't always safe. Avon had felt terribly guilty when he found he had been put, unconscious, in the life capsule. He had intended to check on Blake before leaving, to connect the computers on board their little crafts, to insure they'd land together. But there had been no time, and then Cally and Vila had stuffed him in the capsule and all hell broke loose.

    Later, once the turmoil had died away and they had been able to board Liberator again, Avon had spent more than one sleepless night thinking of Blake, of what could have happened to him. He set Orac to track down the rebel, and as time passed and the small computer found nothing, he had come to believe that Blake was dead. A small strand of hope had remained - a bitter, twisted strand of hope; for if Blake was not dead, he must be either incapacitated, or a prisoner of the Federation. He wasn't sure the burly rebel would not be better off dead than in either of those conditions.

    Yet the obdurate hope had remained, had led him from one false trail to another, had caused the loss of Liberator and the traumatic events of Terminal. He refused to think of Cally's needless death, or the mess he had made of his life and of his relationship with his crew. They no longer trusted him, that much was obvious. Avon was not sure he could trust himself either.

    When he had discovered that Blake was alive after all, he had found himself in the grip of so much emotions that his composure almost collapsed. Relief, elation, then hurt and anger had battled in him to take precedence. They were still warring in him, but anger was the dominant feeling now. A dark, seething anger, one that was worse for having remained unspoken. Blake was alive, and he had let Avon believe he was dead. Avon had suffered for nothing at Servalan's hands on Terminal, and his gentle Auronar companion had _really_ died for nothing. He had been fond of Cally, as much as he allowed himself to feel for others - and that was too much to his taste. He was doomed to be always hurreat, always betrayed when he loved - Anna, and now Blake.

    He knew he had loved the man, in some twisted, sick way. He had been unable to leave the damned fool to his doomed Cause and go on with his life. He had chosen to follow, as he sometimes deluded himself. But there had been no choice. He'd been addicted to Blake, desperately wanting the man's love, not daring to act upon the obvious hints Blake had given that he was interested, too; knowing that if he let things go just this much farther, he'd be lost...

    Well, it had been a damn dumb choice, because he was lost anyway. Not having been Blake's lover had not changed a thing to his addiction, his... love? And, to add insult to injury, to learn now, after two years, that Blake was alive... It maddened him in a way even Shrinker had not managed to cause. It hurt him even more than Anna's treachery had. It was hell, sheer hell.

    He had known for quite some time that Blake was on Gauda Prime, but he had at first decided not to try and find him. He had tried instead to convince Zukan to lead the rebellion, believing it would insulate him from his desperate need to seek Blake. But as he had been unable to resist the siren song of the false message from Blake on Terminal, he found himself unable to resist the call of Gauda Prime. Even before Zukan's treason, he knew he would have to go to that wretched planet. He had stalled for time, but there he was: half out of his mind with anger and pain, deadly tired, but reluctantly attracted to the man who'd left him so callously. Yet he was set on seeing this to the end, whatever the outcome.

    At best, Avon had not been totally balanced after the events on Terminal. He had teetered on the brink of emotional breakdown ever since. He had pulled through by sheer force of will, hiding the brittleness and the pain under the cynic's mask, crushing his tenderest feelings under the weight of ruthlessness and hate. He had managed quite well to turn himself into a total mess; he thought himself a walking, breathing, heartless machine, but he actually was a scared, desperate, sick man who needed only so much to go over the edge.

  
BLAKE'S TRIP

    The closer Avon got to the base, the more anxious Blake became. The progress of his ex-crew was monitored from the main control center, and Deva had not minced his words.

    - What kind of game are you playing, Blake? You know they come for you, they are your friends - or so you say. So why not got and pick them up? Why the charade? Why the waiting? One more of your brilliant tests? Do you think Kerr Avon has something to prove yet?

    Blake had no answer for Deva, nor for himself. Anguish had begun to rise in him, and was not letting up. He thought of his two more recent "recruits", tough Arlene, and young Tarrant. He did not know much about Tarrant, except that he was with Avon, and that meant his hunch had been true: Tarrant was reliable. So, why had he not yet told him the truth? Why continue the deception?

    He tried to rationalize, to tell himself that there would be time to brief Tarrant when the others reached the Base. But an unease persisted, a gut feeling that something was going to go very wrong. He had never felt so helpless and depressed and he did not know what to do about it.

    Almost reluctantly, he went in the direction of the mess, thinking of another reproach Deva often made - a reproach, or a warning. Blake knew he was drinking too much. When he watched his face in the mirror every morning, he not only saw the scars of Star One, but also the stigmas of chronic alcoholism.

    As things kept getting worse on board Liberator, he had slowly taken to drinking as a means of temporary oblivion. Gan's death had precipitated the phenomenon, but he had retained enough sense to hide it from the others. This desire for secrecy had helped him control the need to a certain extent. But here, on Gauda Prime, he no longer was responsible for his crew, he no longer had lightning-fast, life-or-death decisions to make. He was free to let go, a little. He had suffered too much pressure during the two years on board Liberator, and he was presently indulging himself.

    But he did not want to be inebriated when he confronted Avon. He wanted a clear mind. His brain was addled enough as it was. Resolutely, he turned back and retraced his steps to the control center.

 

AVON'S TRIP

 

    His thoughts in turmoil, Avon made his weary way in the forest, looking for traces of his crew. His remaining crew. For young Tarrant was certainly dead, if the crash he had witnessed earlier was anything to judge by.

    With Orac's help, he found the old cabin in which Vila and the girls were hiding. As usual, Vila had botched things up, and the girls had not fared much better. And none of them would have had the means of transportation had Avon not intervened.

    Avon's anger kept growing every minute. Blake had a base, a settled, equipped base. The Scorpio had landed near it, and the base must have picked up the radar echoes of the crash. So, why had he not sent someone to investigate, to check for survivors, to find them ? To find him. Orac had been positive that Blake knew that Avon was looking for him, that he was coming to Gauda Prime; that Blake had been aware of Avon's moves for a considerable amount of time.

    Avon did not understand. He only knew that his whole life had been disrupted and misdirected from the moment he met Blake, from the moment he succumbed to this charismatic but manipulative character. Things had steadily kept growing worse, until the final mess of Star One.

    The last words he'd heard from Blake kept replaying in his mind, again and again, like a vid-tape gone mad. "For what it is worth, I have always trusted you, from the very beginning." Little did he know then that he wouldn't see Blake again after these words had been said, words that entailed so much! Avon had not answered, had not been able to, but he had taken the precious words inside as a gift, as a covenant. These words had sustained him through the battle to save the galaxy, had kept his voice steady when he had given the fated order to fire. They had enabled him to look straight in the face of Death without flinching.

    The others had had glimpses of it through the turmoil, they had relied on Avon's almost inhuman strength and calm at the moment of confronting the Andromedans. And, thanks to Avon's stubbornness, to his adamant decision to hold back the invaders until help came, they had managed to stop the invasion long enough for Servalan's fleet to come to the rescue, and still escape with their lives.

    But now, the words reeked of treachery and manipulation, and Avon felt a fine trembling begin in his body as he tried to repress the anger. It subsided, only to give way to an overwhelming depression tinged with shame at having been so gullible, a feeling which Avon had grown well-acquainted with. The computer tech drove on, following the other flyer, "their guide", as he had put it. A deep sense of doom pervaded his every thought, and to Vila's flippant remark, "Sooner or later, we're going to go under and never come out...", he answered, voice utterly calm and subdued, pitched so low it was barely in hearing's range, "Sooner or later, everyone does that, Vila."

  
VILA'S TRIP

    Vila, who knew Avon better than any of the others - and better than was good for his own life, for he had managed to forgive Avon his assassination attempt over Malodaar because of this knowledge - understood that the man was no longer possessed of a sane mind.

    As for a sane body... what with the sleeplessness, the way Avon drove himself to exhaustion, and the constant backpains which plagued him, the man was a real mess. He had aged ten years since Blake's disappearance. In Blake's time, there had been a kind of unbalance in Avon's personality, and some barely leashed violence, but one could also see, under the cutting wit and the cynic's mask, a real if unvoiced concern for his crewmates, a deep affection for Blake and a lively, witty man ready to take the good things life occasionally tendered him.

    As long as he lived, Vila would not forget their little tryst on Space City, and the small fortune that, incidentally, had vanished along with Liberator. Yes, _this_ Avon he had understood and liked. He no longer understood the tense, secretive, desperate man he had become, the man who had not mourned Cally, the man who had led the Liberator to her doom through sheer stubbornness, the man who had laughed insanely when they found out Servalan had tricked them one more time and gotten herself rich with the black gold, leaving them stuck with a heap of useless paper.

    They had not seen Avon for nearly two days after his fit of unholy laughter on the flight deck. Vila knew the computer tech had gone through some deep crisis, secluded in his cabin, not asking for help and not getting any, for Vila, the only one who understood the seriousness of the situation, had been too scared to do anything. When he had finally emerged, hollow-eyed and deceptively calm (the stillness of death, had thought Vila, not the calm of life), Avon as behaved as if nothing was amiss, and the incident had never been mentioned again.

    This "don't look at it and it will go away" attitude had been one Avon had despised - before. Now, this hollow shell of a man who still went by the name of Avon no longer had any qualms in hiding from reality.

    Avon's answer to Dayna's "What about Dr Plaxton?", after Plaxton's death, had given Vila a chill, because he was positive Avon's "Who?" had not been a manner of speaking, a way of dismissing Plaxton's importance, as Dayna apparently believed at the time, for she left the flight deck rather abruptly, looking shocked at Avon's callousness.

    No, what Vila had seen in the tech's eyes was genuine interrogation. The man had truly forgotten the very existence of the woman he had just murdered. There seemed to be something about Avon, something Vila had difficulty pinpointing, but he wondered if the tech had not been submitted to the Puppeteers' mind techniques too, as was sometimes the procedure before sentencing people to Cygnus Alpha. True, he'd never talked about it, but that did not mean it didn't happen. Avon, in Vila's experience, was emphatically NOT the type to go and weep on one's shoulder about the wrongs done to him. He had never spoken of Anna Grant, and would not have if he had not accidentally met Del Grant. Even then, he had not been very informative, nor had he been after he decided to go after Shrinker.

    Vila remembered the days after Avon had dispatched Shrinker. Upon his return to the ship, he had looked "like death warmed over", in Vila's own words. He had retired to his cabin without a word, walking very slowly, and Vila had been worried about Avon's physical and mental state, for the man had been, for all intents and purposes, tortured for five days by Federation interrogators.

    After debating with himself whether or not to go and check on Avon, Vila had found the courage to buzz the tech's cabin when the computer expert had been locked in for a whole day and night. In these earlier times, Vila reflected, there actually was a kind of rapport between Avon and him, and he, Vila, had not been as much frightened of the haughty Alpha as he would become later. But then, Avon had been different too, more humane, more... accessible. So, when Avon did not answer, Vila picked the lock.

    He had been appalled at the state he found Avon in. The tech was barely conscious, disheveled and feverish. He was tossing and turning on the narrow bunk, his half-naked body shining with perspiration, his breath coming in shallow, painful gasps. He sported some ugly-looking bruises on his arms, chest and back, and a few - but not very deep - open wounds. Besides, the thief never doubted a moment that Avon had been pumped full of various drugs, as this was one of the Federation thugs' favorite methods. Vila tiptoed out of the room, and came back a little while later with Orac. The testy little computer deigned to examine Avon, and Vila fetched the necessary items from the medical unit.

    He dressed Avon's wounds, rubbed soothing cream in the obviously painful bruises, and helped him to swallow the drugs Orac had prescribed - mostly painkillers, antipyretic and sleeping pills. There was a couple of cracked ribs, and he mended them with the portable healing device. Avon's breath had calmed down, but he remained feverish and slightly delirious. Vila had stayed with Avon, covering him when he threw the blankets off the bed time and again, and listening to the rantings of the sick man. He had not recognized Vila, and kept calling him "Blake".

    Vila had often wondered if there had been more than simple affection between the two of them, and Avon's reaction to Blake's loss had seemed to indicate that he was right. Now Avon, in his fever, was calling for Blake, muttering "Hold me, please, Roj... Don't go away.... Nooooo!" He had grabbed Vila's hand and held fast to it, calming down somehow when the thief, moved and slightly jealous, had stroked slowly the too-hot hand and the sweaty forehead, lulling the exhausted man to a much-needed sleep.

    Vila had availed himself of pitiful intimacies he would never have dared to dream of with a wakeful Avon. He had murmured softly to the tech, "Sleep now, love, it's all right, you're gonna be all right, I'm here...", all the while deluding himself that he was playing Blake's rôle for the sick technician; aware in some remote part of his mind that he was enjoying the deception; and hating Blake for having abandoned so callously his lover.

    Vila had no way to know that Avon would have been very surprised - indeed, utterly shocked, - at Vila's interpretation of his relationship with Blake.  

  
THE FINAL ACT

    Blake entered the main control room at a hurried pace, closely followed by Arlen. Avon's craft had landed straight in the silo; that meant the computer technician still had Orac with him. Orac would be a welcome addition to the Rebellion, but at the moment, Blake's thoughts were concentrating on the fact he was going to see Avon. After more than a year - almost two, he realized suddenly - he was going to meet again with the only being who had - almost - counted more than the Cause, more than his obsession to destroy the Federation; the one being who had almost, but not quite, decided Blake to run and hide rather than go on exposing his life to free a world that he sometimes no longer thought cared.

    Avon was there all right, a smoking gun in his hands, and poor Klyn nowhere in sight. It was easy to understand what had just taken place. And Avon looked so dark, so withdrawn... so old. Blake was speechless from shock, not thinking of what his own rather bedraggled appearance might do to Avon. Then, as if in a slow motion dream, he saw, superimposed on the somber face, a sunnily radiant one - Avon, young, happy, and smiling. Him? No, that was impossible! Avon's smiles had never had this innocent quality... He could not remember one single time when...

    Then, in Blake's inner vision, the softly smiling face came close, closer, long lashes hiding bottomless eyes... and Avon's mouth was on his own, in a kiss sweeter than honey, tender and soft... _No! It's impossible! It never happened!_ At the very same moment Blake thought the denying words, crystal-clear memory rushed back to him, accompanied by searing pain. Yes, the image was true, Avon had been this young, carefree creature... when he had been Blake's lover, before the Federation Puppeteers stole from them both so much more than either of them had known or suspected.

    From very far, he heard Tarrant's "Is it him?" and Vila's soft, awe-tinged answer, "It's him." Then things began to go wrong. Blake's mind was numb, he was unable of rational thought as the tidal wave of memory kept pounding at his mind's crumbling walls. The enormity of his just-recovered memories robbed him of all power to express himself.

    Tarrant spoke again, to Avon this time.

     "He sold us, Avon, all of us. Even you!"

    "Is it true? "

    "Avon..."

    _(Avon... my love... My lost love. My remembered love. My sweet, delicate Avon.)_

    "... it's me..."  
 _  
_ (The one who loves you. Don't you recognize me? Oh god, what have they done to us?)

    "... Blake!"

     _(You used to call my name in ecstasy, Avon!)_

     "Stand still! Have you betrayed us? Have you betrayed... me?"

    Avon's voice rose hysterically on the last word. Vila heard the breaking in the tech's voice, the near-sob the sound had been. But even him could not fathom the true extent of Avon's imbalance at this very moment.

    "Tarrant doesn't understand!"

    "Neither do I!"

    "I set all this up!"

    "Yes!"

    The festering wound Avon's psyche had become fed upon this new abuse: not only had Blake abandoned him, he had betrayed him as well. And the man had the gall to say it bluntly, as if it was an everyday occurrence! Avon felt as if someone was twisting a knife in his guts.

    No, not _someone._ The one person he'd allowed himself to trust after having sworn he would never trust again.

    "Avon, I was waiting for you!"

    Blake kept coming at him, and in a flash of blinding certitude, Avon had his answer. No one was allowed to live who treated him thus. Almost of its own volition, his gun shot its deadly charge squarely in Blake's stomach. Blake's mouth opened, but it was Avon who moaned aloud.

    Blake stumbled but did not stop. The gun shot again, and still Blake moved towards him, in what felt to Avon's raw nerves as a stretched, meaningless eternity. The last shot got him low in the chest. His eyes never leaving Avon's, Blake managed the last few inches to reach him, to touch him. In a gesture reminiscent of the charismatic leader he'd once been, Blake pushed the gun away, imperiously forcing Avon to acknowledge one last time his allegiance to the wounded man.

    Voice roughened by pain and imminent death, he uttered his last words: "Oh, A... von..." Then the hands that had clung to Avon's arms slid away and Blake went slowly to his knees, still watching Avon, until his eyes saw no more and he slumped to the floor.

    Avon remained motionless, looking almost as lifeless as the man at his feet. He did not move even when the Federation troopers barged in the room. His friends fell around him, but he did not see them. He did not see Vila's last denial of being a coward. He did not see Dayna fall, nor cold, bright Soolin. He did not see Tarrant, brought down when he tried to come back for him. Only when the troopers were totally encircling him did he finally raise his head.

    He was not longer able to think and reason. His much-vaunted mind, and the heart he had tried all his life to deny, had both died with Blake. Seeing the troopers poised to strike, he felt elation overwhelm him.

    There would be no need to live with what he had just done.

    Carefully, as if he could still hurt the silent figure on the floor, Avon stepped over Blake's body, straddling him in death as he had never dared to do in life.

    Slowly and deliberately, he raised his gun.

    And his smile did not falter till the bitter end.


End file.
